Palin Wasn’t the Mistake on That Ticket

Aug 1, 2012

RUSH: Now, last Sunday on This Week, Jonathan Karl interviewed Dick Cheney, and this is the sound bite where Cheney says that picking Sarah Palin was a mistake. And this was a toughie. It’s not a defensible comment. I wouldn’t even try. The thing to note about this is that shortly after this, Liz Cheney sent out the following tweet. “Rarely do I disagree with the best VP ever, but Sarah Palin is more qualified than Obama and Biden combined. I have huge respect for all she’s done for the GOP.” So Liz Cheney tweeted that. That didn’t get a lot of coverage, either, but she tweeted it three or four hours, later that afternoon on Sunday.

Cheney had some of the most critical comments ever about Obama that never ended up being repeated or covered because the media so salivates — this was what was unfortunate about this — so salivates over any discord, and they so hate Palin. They hate Cheney, too, but since Cheney came along and criticized Palin, oh, all of a sudden Cheney is the world’s foremost authority. All of a sudden they have unbridled love for Cheney. Now, just a wild guess here. You know as well as I do that Dick Cheney’s area of primary concern is foreign policy. Cheney was shaped by 9/11 like little else. And it was his sole focus, well, not sole, but the primary focus of the vice president was keeping the country safe, and if there’s a problem that he has with Palin I would assume that it’s in that regard. Anyway, here’s the bite, and following that, I want to play Palin reacting to the victory of Ted Cruz and hitting back at the vice president. Here’s Cheney.

CHENEY: Pretty important. That one, I don’t think, was well- handled. The test to get on that small list has to be, is this person capable of being president of the United States? And that’s usually a very, very short list. I like Governor Palin. I’ve met her. I know her. She’s an attractive candidate. But based on her background, she had only been governor for, what, two years? I don’t think she passed that test…

KARL: Of being ready?

CHENEY: … of being ready to take over. And I think that was a — a mistake.

RUSH: That’s just sad, unnecessary to say. As they say in the intellectual circles, ladies and gentlemen, it wasn’t useful. I mean, ready? Obama had been a senator for, what, a hundred and some odd days, and how many of those had he shown up? Anyway, let’s move forward, last night, On the Record, Greta Van Susteren, she spoke with Sarah Palin about Cruz and his victory over David Dewhurst. She said, “Big victory for one of your candidates tonight in Texas, Ted Cruz winning the nomination. I suppose a victory for the Tea Party tonight, too. I know you were out campaigning for him. You campaigned in Nebraska for another candidate. You’ve had some wins recently. What are your thoughts about this?”

PALIN: It’s a victory for Tea Party patriots who just want to get our country back on the right track and defend our republic. The Tea Party patriots who came from all over the country recognizing that Ted Cruz is the man to not just embrace status quo in Washington, but will engage in the sudden and relentless reform of our big, centralized federal government, trying to shrink that government and allow more states’ rights and allow individual rights and opportunities, they recognize Ted Cruz was the man. It’s the Tea Party patriots who worked so hard for him. He’s gonna do so well for all Americans when he makes it to Washington, DC.

RUSH: I tell you, from everything I’ve learned, people I’ve spoken to, what she says about Cruz is right. Apparently the Democrats are scared to death about this guy. He’s not a verbal reformer. He doesn’t just talk it. They’re really, really concerned that this guy, as a freshman, is going to have a profound effect on the Senate, that he’s gonna go in there and really shake it up. That’s the expectation people have, and the expectation is based on a belief that he means it when he said it, and a belief that he can do it. This guy, the expectations, the aspirations people have for Ted Cruz, other people are talking about him as a future justice on the Supreme Court, any number of things. Really, really, a lot of accolades about the guy. So the next question Van Susteren asks, “Dick Cheney said he didn’t think you were particularly good choice 2008. And his daughter tweeted something to the contrary. She thought that you were. Do you have a response to this?”

PALIN: Seeing as how Dick — excuse me — Vice President Cheney never misfires, then evidently he’s quite convinced that what he had evidently read about me by the lamestream media, having been written what I believe is a false narrative over the last four years, evidently Dick Cheney believed that stuff, and that’s a shame. So he characterized me as being a mistake. I was honored to accept the nomination from the GOP. And I think that the mistake would have been me just deciding that, hey, I love my 86, 87% approval rating up there in Alaska as the governor. I coulda decided, I don’t want to be bloodied up. I don’t want my family to go through what we will have to go through in the name of service to this country, but I did it. I believe I did the right thing in accepting that call.

RUSH: And we all know that that campaign would have had zilch, zero, nada energy and wouldn’t have had anywhere near the chance it had were it not for Palin. No question about it. The mistake on that ticket was not Palin. Pure and simple. Sarah Palin was not the mistake on that ticket.